Singles that are hard to find.

Original singles that are hard to find:

These come to mind:

Madonna - Holiday
Wham - Everything she wants
Journey - Don't stop believin'
Wang Chung - everybody have fun tonight
Corey hart - Sunglasses at Night.

If you are talking about original single versions of Top 40 hits, might I add:

Tone Loc-Funky Cold Medina.

The single/radio/hit version uses a different vocal than the LP version. I've heard the album version misused on a couple of "Variety Hits" stations. The single version has a spoken intro as well ("...and we go a little something like this...hit it!"). The hit version can be found on Rhino's "Millennium Hip Hop Party" compilation.

As for "Holiday"....most stations seem to use the remix from "The Immaculate Collection".

Another one where stations seem to use the album version (instead of the single): Men Without Hats-Safety Dance

Just finished formatting a Variety Hits station that launches mid March and the decision was made to use album versions where we can. Our thinking is when the CD or whatever was purchased it was the album version that was listened to so why not give people that version instead of some arbitrary edit....I worked for one station in the late 80's that had a 4 minute or less rule, and as the Production Director on add day there would be music on my desk with instructions on where to cut to make the time limit...The majority of the time it was an instrumental bridge that got cut but more than once I cut an entire verse to make the 4 minute rule....Needless to say songs like Baker Street were murdered to make the time limit...I realize using the album cut goes against the norm, but maybe shaking things up a bit is what is needed from time to time.....

Good luck with your new Variety Hits station.

I prefer the radio single versions of the songs because I feel that is the version people have become accustomed to hearing. Especially the demo you are going after. I didn't buy albums or CDs when I was younger, so I only knew the radio edit versions. I was mostly a radio listener. I didn't have a tape deck in my car, either. Sometimes I'll hear the album version on a station and I speculate that they just didn't have a budget to purchase the Gold Discs of the single versions from TM Studios.

I do wish you success with your station. Have fun.

In most cases I prefer the radio versions of 80s songs, and that's what I use on my 80s Internet station. The station has been operational since May of 2009, and not one listener has ever complained to me about the versions of songs I use. There are a few exceptions where I will use the longer version. One example is Heart To Heart by Kenny Loggins. In this situation I use the 5:00 minute version, because to my ears the shorter version sounds abrupt.

This reminds me of Money For Nothing. The original single version is around 4:30. Of course cutting the verse from the song that contains the objectionable word, knocks it down to 4:00 minutes.

R

Unregistered said:

Just finished formatting a Variety Hits station that launches mid March and the decision was made to use album versions where we can. Our thinking is when the CD or whatever was purchased it was the album version that was listened to so why not give people that version instead of some arbitrary edit....I worked for one station in the late 80's that had a 4 minute or less rule, and as the Production Director on add day there would be music on my desk with instructions on where to cut to make the time limit...The majority of the time it was an instrumental bridge that got cut but more than once I cut an entire verse to make the 4 minute rule....Needless to say songs like Baker Street were murdered to make the time limit...I realize using the album cut goes against the norm, but maybe shaking things up a bit is what is needed from time to time.....

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I'm with you on that one. In most cases, the album version is the standard. It is the one that was edited to create the "radio-friendly" single, and it was also the one from which the 12-inch single was usually created. I listen to the retro American Top 40 countdowns, and some of the songs were really butchered to fit into the show's time frame!

Robert Bass said:

In most cases I prefer the radio versions of 80s songs, and that's what I use on my 80s Internet station. The station has been operational since May of 2009, and not one listener has ever complained to me about the versions of songs I use. There are a few exceptions where I will use the longer version. One example is Heart To Heart by Kenny Loggins. In this situation I use the 5:00 minute version, because to my ears the shorter version sounds abrupt.

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In most cases, I prefer the album version. But there are a couple of exceptions. With Ram Jam's "Black Betty," the instrumental bridge just sounds like it was inserted after the fact. That is probably because I got used to the single version. More recently, the Sara Bareilles hit "Love Song" has an extra bridge in it that sounds so foreign, it is as if it were flown in from another song. But in most cases, I prefer the album version, provided that it isn't TOO long!

This reminds me of Money For Nothing. The original single version is around 4:30. Of course cutting the verse from the song that contains the objectionable word, knocks it down to 4:00 minutes.

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The single version (which I have) is called the "long edit." Of course, "long edit" implies the existence of a "short edit," too. And the short edit is the one that omits the second verse. I believe that you can find both of these on youtube.

What was mainly edited from the album version was Sting's repetitive "I want my MTV" from the beginning and end of the song.

I just pulled out my 45 RPM of Money For Nothing. I never noticed before that it said "Long Edit" on it. Wow...

R

In cases where the album and single versions don't differ much (other than length), I'm fine with the album version.

However, when the hit single/radio version contains a completely different mix, different vocal, or where the album version lacks key elements (e.g.: the DJ Kool Kat "rap" on Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract), I much prefer the single version (as that's what I remember from the radio/MTV).

Of course I'd imagine a station's focus can play into it as well. For example, a more "rock" focused station might use the original album version of "*** On Feel The Noize", while a more "pop" oriented one might substitute the shorter version with the edited guitar solo. A station that avoids rap might use the version of Michael Jackson's "Black Or White" with the rap section omitted.

There are cases where a few choice edits really tighten things up as well, Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls", for example. (In that case the single edit is probably the most familiar, due to it's inclusion on "Queen's Greatest Hits").

...and there are some radio edit's that should never see the light of day, like the sanitized version of George Michael's "I Want Your Sex".......errr "Love" that some Top 40's were using. Thankfully, I bet that's "hard to find".

Obtuse said:

However, when the hit single/radio version contains a completely different mix, different vocal, or where the album version lacks key elements (e.g.: the DJ Kool Kat "rap" on Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract), I much prefer the single version (as that's what I remember from the radio/MTV).

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It annoyed me that the video of "Need You Tonight" by INXS also contained "Mediate" (the next song on the album, sort of a "mini-song," only a little over a minute), yet most radio stations seemed reluctant to play "Mediate" WITH "Need You Tonight," and other than AAA stations, that still seems to be the case.

...and there are some radio edit's that should never see the light of day, like the sanitized version of George Michael's "I Want Your Sex".......errr "Love" that some Top 40's were using. Thankfully, I bet that's "hard to find".

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George Michael is so unpopular now that I would hope that NO version of that song is played anymore!

New Kids on the Block (when they really were New Kids) had a song in the late 80's.
Hangin' tough, the radio version has a guitar solo while the "sold in stores" version had an organ solo.
(or maybe the other way around)
The radio version seems to have vanished. The "sold in stores" version may also be scarce.

If a classic/variety hits format leans pop, I'm more into the radio edits. If it leans rock, I'm for the album cut. For example, here in Indianapolis, WJJK is a rock-leaning classic hits station, but they play the radio edit of Boston's "More Than a Feeling". It's suited to the tastes of the programmer and the station dynamic, whether it be local or, in WJJK's case, corporate.

I also wish more stations would take the time to find & use the top 40 edits/remixes instead of album cuts. Many times, the vocals & production on the singles was much better than on the original cuts. I like all the tweaked elements that made many much more pop friendly. A couple of single edits I like for little reasons from the 80s, that aren't usually heard are Tom Petty's Freefallin (the single had tons of reverb/echo on the chorus that the album version doesn't & I haven't heard it in years.) Also, The Clash Rock the Casbah where the single mix holds out & echoes the "jive" lyric. John Waites Missing You is another with great reverb vocals on the radio edit that's never heard now.

Anyway, those are just a few quick examples I can think of.

BRH said:

I also wish more stations would take the time to find & use the top 40 edits/remixes instead of album cuts.

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As someone who consults/programs stations running a classic 80's New Wave format, I can tell you with certainty that more than 90% of the time those edits and remixes have not been reissued on CD and you would be hard pressed to find a clean copy of the original 45 for dubbing and digitizing after all this time.

I'd be thrilled if the labels would at least go back into the vaults, pull the master tapes for those edited versions, and issue CDs for broadcast use only ... but I'm sure the number crunchers at the labels have already decided there's no profit in such an idea.

K.M. Richards said:

As someone who consults/programs stations running a classic 80's New Wave format, I can tell you with certainty that more than 90% of the time those edits and remixes have not been reissued on CD and you would be hard pressed to find a clean copy of the original 45 for dubbing and digitizing after all this time.

I'd be thrilled if the labels would at least go back into the vaults, pull the master tapes for those edited versions, and issue CDs for broadcast use only ... but I'm sure the number crunchers at the labels have already decided there's no profit in such an idea.

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Well Dave Scott did this when he created the GoldDisc product for Century21 (TM Century, TM Studios). But TM discontinued the GoldDisc product a few years ago, and they discontinued the GoldWave service in May.

Dave has some of those same songs available at www.uncompressedmusic.com

R

Robert Bass said:

Well Dave Scott did this when he created the GoldDisc product for Century21 (TM Century, TM Studios). But TM discontinued the GoldDisc product a few years ago, and they discontinued the GoldWave service in May.

Dave has some of those same songs available at www.uncompressedmusic.com

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Dave's an old friend and I highly recommend his service for stations with holes in their libraries, or doing complete format flips.

But I asked him a few years ago if he keeps those old single edits from the GoldDisc and HitDisc series in the UCM library and he said that most of them are gone now, because he got cleaner copies ripping from CDs. I get the impression that there wasn't enough demand for those versions for him to worry about it.

Not sure if this will help, depending on what you want, but I have been able to find some alternate versions of various songs on youtube, and I have even been able to download material that is simply not commercially available anywhere, at any price. Someone has been able to upload Beatles albums that were never even released, much less released and then discontinued. (They even have album cover artwork to go along with these never-released albums!) So I have material to burn a couple of CDs of Beatles albums that I cannot buy anywhere, even if I wanted to.

youtube uses some form of audio conversion that I found does not work real well for broadcast use.

R

Granted, youtube downloads are for my own use (anything else is probably illegal), but I have been able to download cleaner copies from youtube videos than from my own records, whether they are "scratchy" or not. So I will continue to download and record from youtube, until there is a better way.

If all you want to do is create a single edit from the album version you can do that, too, assuming that that is the only difference between the single edit and the album version. You just need to know where the edit points are. I have created a few such edits here on the computer, myself.

firepoint525 said:

If all you want to do is create a single edit from the album version you can do that, too, assuming that that is the only difference between the single edit and the album version. You just need to know where the edit points are. I have created a few such edits here on the computer, myself.

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Well yes and no. Sometimes the single versions have different arrangements and instrumentation as compared to the album versions. John Waite's tune Missing You is a good example of this. The single mix has reverb on the vocals that is missing on the album version, for example. I'm glad I got it from TM while I had the chance.

R